But slowly that was beginning to give away to pain and panic as my body struggled with a buildup of carbon dioxide. My lungs started to burn. I looked up toward the rays of light barely breaking the water, and it occurred to me too late that I had gone down too far.
I had swum down for almost five minutes, which meant that it would take me almost five minutes to surface. That was twice as long as I could hold my breath. I was in trouble.
With my eyes fixed on the sun above me, I kicked my legs as fast as I could, racing against the clock. My lungs felt like they were going to explode, and the muscles in my abdomen began to painfully spasm.
But the light above was growing brighter, and if I pushed myself, I could just make it. The pressure aggravated my head injury, making the vision in my right eye blur and my head throb. A fog was descending on my brain. Then everything faded to blackness, and my legs went limp underneath me, despite my demands that they swim on.
ELEVEN
delusion
The good news was I was breathing. I could feel it—oxygen filled my lungs with ease. Beyond that, my stomach ached as if I’d been punched, and my head throbbed dully. But all that pain meant I was alive.
“I think she’s coming to,” a female voice was saying softly.
“Bryn!” Ridley shouted in a panic, slapping me on the cheek.
“Stop hitting me,” I mumbled and weakly pushed his arm back. The ground felt soft beneath me, so I assumed I was lying on the grass, safely out of the dark clutches of drowning.
He exhaled roughly. “You scared the crap out of me, Bryn.”
“Sorry.” I opened my eyes to see Ridley and the missing Queen Linnea bent over me. “Hey, I found her.”
Linnea smiled—there was no lipstick out here, so her lips were a pale pink, in line with the porcelain tones of her skin. Strangely, without the makeup she actually looked older than when I’d seen her before.
She was sixteen but a young sixteen, with an innocence about her. The too-bright red lipstick had reminded me of a little girl playing dress-up, whereas now she simply appeared to be her age. It probably didn’t help that with her ringlet curls and wide blue eyes, she bore a remarkable resemblance to Shirley Temple.
“Actually, I found you,” Linnea correct me. “You were about to drown when I spotted you and pulled you to the shore.”
“Thank you.”
I sat up, and a wave of dizziness nearly knocked me back, but I fought it off. It didn’t help waking up in this place, where everything felt like a dream. Everything had a shimmery edge to it, like it wasn’t quite real.
“You okay?” Ridley put a hand on my shoulder to steady me, and his strength reassured me the way it always did.
For a moment, with the sun backlighting him and the water dripping down his bare chest, Ridley appeared absolutely dazzling. He’d leaned over when he touched me, and the very nearness of him took my breath away. That only made his chestnut eyes darken in concern, and I hurried to shake off the feeling and pull my attention away from him.
“Are y-you okay?” I asked Linnea, stuttering a bit as I composed myself.
She nodded. Other than the lack of makeup, she looked the same as she had when I saw her last—no signs of injury. She wore a blue bikini, revealing her slender figure, so any bumps or bruises would have been visible.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, deciding to cut to the chase. “Why did you leave Storvatten?”
“I couldn’t stay there anymore.” She shook her head, and her translucent gills flared beneath her jaw. “Something is going on there.”
“What do you mean?” Ridley asked.
“The guards at the palace have been acting strangely,” she explained. “They were normally aloof and careless, but lately I’ve felt like they were watching me too closely. I don’t know how to explain it, but everywhere I went, I felt like I had eyes on me.”
“Did you tell anyone about it?” I asked.
“Not right away,” Linnea went on. “At first I thought I was only being paranoid, so I waited a few weeks before bringing it to my husband. Mikko wasn’t overly concerned, but he tried to ease my fears by saying he would talk to the guards.”
“Did anything change after that?” Ridley pressed her, and I could tell he was doing his best not to sound accusatory.
We’d long suspected that Linnea’s husband, the Skojare King Mikko, had had some involvement in her disappearance. Even with Konstantin Black’s presence, there still seemed to be something odd about Mikko and the guards in Storvatten. They had blocked our attempts at gathering information and doing a proper investigation, not to mention that Mikko had shifted from indifferent about his wife’s disappearance to devastated rather quickly.
There was also the matter of his marriage to Linnea. It had been arranged by their families, as most royal mergers were, and Mikko was twice her age. They’d been married for less than a year, and I had to wonder what exactly those kind of nuptials were like.
“Things didn’t really have a chance to change,” Linnea elaborated. “I told Mikko about my suspicions, and two days later the dark man was telling me that I had to get out of there.”
“Wait.” I waved my hand. “What man?”
“He never said his name, but he had a darker complexion, like you.” Linnea pointed to Ridley, referring to his dark olive skin. “Black wavy hair, a beard, and gray eyes.”
I hadn’t really needed her to describe him, but I wanted to be absolutely sure. It was Konstantin Black.